For the first time tears rose to her eyes. She looked again at Phoebe, then she glanced at the fire, then at the doll.
“Sophia Maria does not comfort me any longer,” she said. “Would it kill you, Phoebe, if your mother went to heaven?”
“I ’spect so, miss. Oh dear, missy! I ’spect so.”
“Then,” said Nan—and the next instant she had tumbled from her seat, had tottered forward, and was clasped in Phoebe’s arms—“let me cry. Don’t say anything to comfort me; I want to cry such a big, big lot. Let me cry, and clasp me tight—very tight—Phoebe.”
So Phoebe did clasp the motherless little girl, and the two mingled their tears. After that affairs moved better. Phoebe herself fed Nan, and then they cuddled up on the sofa, which Phoebe drew in front of the fire. Phoebe found her occupation intensely interesting. She was very, very sorry for Nan, and very comfortable in the thought that her own mother was alive. Nan began to ask her questions, and Phoebe answered.
“Did you ever know a little girl whose mother died ’cept me—did you, Phoebe?”
“Oh yes, miss; there was a girl in our village. It was a more mournful case than yours, miss, for there were two little brothers—they were young as young could be, nothing more than babies—and she was left to mind them, so to speak.”
“That must have been very nice for her. I wish I had two little brothers to mind. And did she mind them, Phoebe? Was she good to them?”
“No, miss; that she warn’t. She were for a bit, but afterwards she took to neglecting of them, and they were sent to an orphan school, and the girl went to service.”
“Oh! she was not a lady,” said Nan in a tone of slight contempt.